Dear Family & Friends,

 

We wish you a very Merry Christmas!  As you probably are too, we're amazed another year has come and nearly gone again.  Time continues to accelerate, or so it seems, throughout the advancing years.  We're now in our 23rd year of marriage, but at least we both still think we're young, despite the evidence of our aging friends.:-)

  

This past year here in Alaska has been an amazing experience.  Each day we're blessed by the beauty of our surroundings here, and we still get surprised quite frequently by yet another amazing sunset or marvelous wildlife encounter.  But,we're also constantly reminded of the reason we're here when confronted by the contrasting spiritual and physical needs that we come into contact with through our ministry service with MARC.

 

Thankfully, we know there's an easy solution for each problem and for every hurting person, and we celebrate that marvelous truth each December.  Every potential need that we could ever encounter here in Alaska is easily answered by the attributes of hope and love captured in the name of Christ and pronounced by Isaiah nearly 2700 years ago:  Wonderful, Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, and The Prince of Peace.

 

God's love has sustained us this busy and eventful past year, and we're so very appreciative of each prayer of support you've made on our behalf.  We're not sure we could ever capture the year very well with words, so we're choosing to recap the year with some of our favorite pictures from the year.  We hope you enjoy!

 

We had the chance to visit the "lower 48" together twice during the year.  In May, we attended a special event that recognizes college juniors and seniors with scholarship and mentoring opportunties through the R. Gene and Nancy D. Richter Foundation.  Gene was one of David's mentors, and we appreciate the chance to honor his legacy and reconnect with his wife Nancy and the scholarship recipients each year.  This year the event was in Orlando, so we especially appreciated the sun and "had to" take advantage of Disney's veteran discounts while we were there.  We flew into South Carolina and were able to visit David's family and some good friends along the way as we drove from SC, to Georgia, to Florida, to Alabama, and then back to SC.  It was a busy couple of weeks!

Later in August, David attended a fundraising/development seminar in Indianapolis, so we were able to work in a weekend with Karin's family there.  We had a great time catching up with our nieces and nephews and attending the Indiana State Fair where nephew Lucas Inniger competed in the lawn tractor competition.  Karin spent many summers working at the fair, so she enjoyed being able to experience that again from the "other side" of the exhibition hall booths.  :-)

We also were at the evening Sugarland concert during which a fast-moving thunderstorm and accompanying wind burst collapsed the stage's roof and light riggings, killing 7 people and wounding more than 40 others.  We were safely out of harm's way, but David went down to the collapse area to assist in the disaster.  David ended up by the side of Nate Byrd who was part of the stage crew up in the rigging operating the lights, where he helped triage and evacute Nate to the arriving medical responders.  Unfortunately Nate suffered major trauma in his long fall and died early the next morning in surgery.  This was a heartbreaking event, but we were comforted in the fact that God knew just where we'd be and put David by the side of one who needed his strength and presence.

Our cats Taspinar, Duchess, and Mo continue to thrive in Alaska.  They are particularly fond of watching the seagulls and eagles as they soar by or use our yard trees to watch for rabbits.  We have two hawks that live in the neighboring woods and that are very protective of their turf.  You can see one of the hawks making an attack upon a visiting eagle in the collage below.